Near East Kingdoms

Bit Bunakki / Pitanu (City State) (Southern Mesopotamia)

Mesopotamian States & Groups Canaanite States & Groups Islamic Empire Israelites & Israel Ancient Mesopotamia (Intro) Rome Syrian States & Groups

The city states of Sumer formed one of the first great civilisations in human history (see feature link). This Near Eastern civilisation emerged a little way ahead of that of Africa's ancient Egypt, and up to a millennium before that of the Indus Valley culture. It developed out of the end of the Pottery Neolithic across the Fertile Crescent, a period which had seen Neolithic Farmer practices spread far and wide across the Near East and beyond.

As irrigation improved so the more southerly reaches of the Euphrates could at last be occupied by humans and their animals. Southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and the western edge of Iran) was subjected to permanent settlement during the fifth and fourth millennia BC. Sumer faded and ended by about 2004 BC, and Mesopotamia's history during the second millennium BC was chequered, with some key low points.

The city of Bit Bunakki (otherwise shown as Bīt Burnakki or Bit Purnakki), was located on the border zone between the Assyrian empire of the first millennium BC and the Elamite kingdom. It was frequently mentioned in neo-Assyrian texts in the eighth and seventh centuries BC.

It is first mentioned during the reign of Shamshi-Adad V, before appearing again in a letter to Sargon II and again in the royal inscriptions of Sermacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal. One text notes that the people of Mih­ranu knew the city as Pitanu.

In one inscription Bīt Bunakki is labelled a royal city. Its location, however, remains unknown. It has yet to be linked to any surviving occupation tells. It was situated in or near the mountains, a fact which is known because the 'passes of Bit Bunakki' are noted, and it was somewhere near Rāši to the east of Der (modern Badra) and therefore deeper into the foothills of the Zagros mountains than nearby Der.

Principal author(s): Page created: Page last updated:

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City, Gwendolyn Leick (Penguin Books, 2001), from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from Historical Atlas of the Ancient World, 4,000,000 to 500 BC, John Heywood (Barnes & Noble, 2000), from The Ancient Near East, c.3000-330 BC, Amélie Kuhrt (Routledge, 2000, Vol I & II), from Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Michael Road (Facts on File, 2000), from Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Enrico Ascalone (Dictionaries of Civilizations 1, University of California Press, 2007), from History of the Ancient Near East c.3000-323 BC, Marc van der Mieroop (Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 2007), and from External Links: Ancient History, Anthony Michael Love (Sarissa.org), and Bit Bunakki (Encyclopaedia Iranica), and Gregorian Egyptian Museum.)

649 BC

After his brother rebels in 652 BC, Assyria's Ashurbanipal besieges Babylon, bringing it back into the empire. Rebellions in support of Babylon by the Kedarites and Nabatu are also put down, possibly prior to Babylon's recapture.

Some of the earliest cities, such as Sippar, Borsippa, and Kish in the north, and Ur, Uruk, and Eridu in the south, formed the endpoints of what became the complex Sumerian network of cities and canals (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Ashurbanipal has already proven himself to be not only a hunter, but also a warrior, taking great pride in being able to read and write at a time when usually only scribes mastered the intricacies of cuneiform writing. He has amassed a huge library of clay tablets, which his agents have collected from throughout the empire to store in the great library in Babylonia.

644 - c.620 BC

After conquering Kedar, the Assyrians devastate Elam, to all intents and purposes ending one of the longest-surviving regional states. It is likely that it is during this period in which the border city of Bit Bunakki is besieged by Ashurbanipal.

This Assyrian relief has been recomposed from two fragments, depicting the siege of the border city of Bit Bunakki by Ashurbanipal's troops, and with the city name being included in the top right corner of the inscription

The attempt is likely to be successful as the 'North Palace' of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh carries a relief which depicts the siege and shows soldiers removing stones from the defensive walls to permit entrance into the city. However, by around 620 BC, with Assyria rapidly weakening, Media takes control of the region.